The Back Story

May 12, 2017

What strikes me first about life back on land is how far
away nature seems. I now know the day and time but have lost track of the phase
of the moon and the rhythm of the tides. I haven’t noticed the constellations
yet and half-wonder if they failed to follow us home.

We tracked Orion around the globe. In Australia, the
constellation was tipped on its head—and went by the un-majestic moniker, Saucepan. He regained his upright glory
by the time we reached the Caribbean. But we’ve
now been back in Vancouver
almost two weeks and I’ve yet to catch a glimpse of the great hunter.

It could be because of the rain—which has so far punctuated
but not overwhelmed the sun. But even the daily weather moods are lost to me. Where
we live, the sky is filtered through a canopy of trees. It's no longer an
endless vista, where we could see approaching changes long before they arrived.

We can’t hear the wind, or sense the shifts and changes that
are more a part of a day’s natural cycle than the clock we all use. How right it felt
to get up when the light brightened the hatch above our bed; to finish the
laundry before the afternoon breeze set in; to shop or do school in the cool of
the morning before we moved into the leisure that comes when the bright heat
makes the day grow languid.

There’s much to adjust to here—but there’s also so much
stress about things that just shouldn’t matter. It was remarkably easy to smile
through the adventure of having our car towed. To change our plans—knowing that
no plan should be rigid. I think the woman I paid the giant-ass fee to (so much
for a new bed this month…) was surprised to have someone happy to deal with.

We’ve also been through more hoops than expected to get Maia
back in school. But when the District Principal told me he bet I didn’t miss
all the bureaucracy all I could think was how remarkably lucky we were to be in
a place where so many people were invested in making sure my daughter received what
she needed from the school—even if it did take three school board visits, two
school visits, four phone calls and many, many hours…

There is so much to be captivated by now we’re back. We can
take yoga classes on youtube, buy amazing new clothes at a second hand shop for
almost nothing, there are FOUR gorgeous produce shops within a couple of
blocks, there is still snow in the mountains and cherry blossoms in the trees.
We’ve seen our families and Charlie the cat shows us each day how much he loves
all his new space by racing from room to room meowing with enthusiam. Even at 4 am.

Houses are inefficient though. We have to be careful not to
yell for each other now we’re spaced more than an arms span apart. And I end up
walking from the fridge, to the sink, to the stove, to the table a long hallway away more than seems possible.
And, of course, we can’t go to windward if the urge came to sail away.

May 9, 2017

I’m not sure how many cats have sailed around the world—my guess
is not that many. Even Charlie the cat gets a “*flew across the Pacific” added
to his official circumnavigation certificate because of the way we
opted to import him onto Australia.

But now that all of us (including Charlie!) are back home in
Vancouver on
solid land here’s a recap of having him aboard.

Usually people want to know if he’s still with us (yes!),
what sailing with a cat is like, what documents he needs and how we manage to
care for him. If pets aren’t your thing—skip this post. But if you wonder what
it’s like to sail around the world from a feline perspective, read on.

Between Charlie and Travis the cat we’ve crossed two oceans,
sailed over 40,000 miles and had pets on board in over 30 different countries.
Which means we’ve been clearing cats in and out of countries and looking for
(but not necessarily finding) cat food and kitty litter in a lot of interesting
places.

Temperament

Both our cats came aboard at young ages. We found Travis as
a starving kitten in Mexico
and he never really became a tame cat. He dove overboard to catch fish over 35
times (and required rescuing), sneaked out on deck during bad weather to catch flying fish, helped
himself to our guest’s rum drinks, once stowed away on another boat for a
holiday, broke into numerous boats, marred a good number of paint and varnish
jobs and gave us the reputation of being the worst pet owners ever.

Charlie came aboard at a year old and completely redeemed
our pet-raising credibility. He was nice to visitors, was a great night watch
companion, didn’t realize he could actually get off the boat and roam the docks
at marinas until our last stop in La Cruz, was never that fussy about food or
had medical problems.

It may seem counter-intuitive—but for sailing cats, nervous
home bodies may make the better companions.

Care and Feeding of Fluffy

Unlike North America—with its
wide variety of pet food choices, cats in the rest of the world seem to subsist on
Whiskas or Purina (and whatever they catch and kill for themselves). Charlie had
a bad experience with a bag of Whiskas going moldy—so he mostly ate Purina.

A couple of times I tried to stock up on healthier (less
filler) options—but be aware in the hot humid environment aboard a boat, even
sealed bags of food don’t keep that well.

Charlie ate lots of fresh fish when it was available and,
unlike 20-years ago when Travis was aboard, we found kitty litter often enough
that we never ran out. Typically though we bought enough food and kitty litter
to last until we would reach to a country where we knew we could get more.

One thing that did surprise us (which shouldn’t have) was
how much more water Charlie drank. Especially when we had sailed into the
Southern Hemisphere but some odd biological signal told Charlie it was time to
grow his winter coat in October—he was really thirsty then.

Sea Sick Cats and
Other Perils

In most respects Charlie is a great boat cat. He’s super
cautious—so unlike Travis the cat we’ve never found him on the foredeck trying
to catch flying fish while we were underway. And he only learned about visiting
other boats when we got to La Cruz (bad kitty). He did catch a couple of bats
over the years—which made us glad we kept his rabies up to date. But he never
showed any interest in rum drinks or beating up our guests—including officials,
which we think is good.

The only thing that Charlie the cat did that concerned us was get seasick on the
first day of a passage. So when we head out—he doesn’t get breakfast. And if he
looks sad and starts to pant or drool we get a rag handy. Other than that he’s
pleasant to have around—he’s sweet and cuddly and moderately playful. For those
who knew Travis—we think of Charlie as our reward for having given him a good home.

Clearing In to
Foreign Countries

Charlie was micro chipped and given a big fat file of
impressive looking paperwork when we imported him into Australia. We
covered what was involved in bringing Charlie into Oz in another post—so this
is more general. Most places don’t really care about Charlie. We don’t hide him
away—but we only bring him up if we’re asked directly if we have a pet onboard.
Then we pass along his paperwork for perusal.

One complication we’ve found is that while countries may
want up to date medical records it’s hard to find places to take pets to get
their vaccines updated without potentially exposing them to other pets with
illnesses you don’t want to encounter. He did see vets in Australia and South Africa for updates. But for most
countries just the volume and official-ness of the paper was enough and even
though we got him his updated vaccines and a health certificate in Mexico neither the US
nor Canada
seemed concerned.

Shedding and General
Hassle

Charlie was an excellent boat cat—and other than the Australia importation
bit he was affordable to have aboard. For reasons known only the universe
Charlie shed way more than the extremely fluffy Travis. Part of it may have
been he never did manage to sort out his winter/summer coat schedule and seemed
to always try and grow a winter coat at funny times. The result though was our
boat often seemed hairy inside. But, if you like pets you learn to tolerate it.

We also found that it was pretty easy to find him pet
sitters when we wanted to go places (lots of sailors crave kitty time). He does
fairly well on his own for up to two nights. But in hotter weather is was
important to have someone checking the boat’s temperature and making sure he
had enough water.

For the record it turns out Charlie is also an excellent
road tripper. He loved the hotel rooms on the trip up to Canada and was
pretty patient with his box time. Let me know what else you like to know!

About Me

Our family of three (+ feline) just finished sailing around the world. This blog contains the story of our travels and experiences, thoughts about the world, and on Maia's blog you'll also find the occasional rant.